In the fabrication of wooden table tops or the like, it is common to butt a plurality of adjacent boards edge-to-edge and fit or bond dowel pins in matched holes drilled in the edge surfaces to hold the top surfaces of the boards coplanar or flat. A common problem in such a fabrication, particularly by hobbyist-level woodworkers, is accurately locating and drilling the holes exactly opposite one another and in proper registry in the corresponding boards.
One aspect of registry is the placement of the dowel pins equally from the top surfaces of the boards so that when the boards are butted together the top surfaces are coplanar and flat. Of interest also in this registry is accurately sizing the holes and maintaining the holes parallel to the top surfaces of the boards. Moreover, the spacing between the many dowel pins used is important, ideally being somewhat uniformly spaced apart and somewhat symmetrical of the ends of the boards. Thus six dowel pins might be used to connect two 48 inch boards together. A dowel pin being located 11/2 inches in from each edge and the remaining 45 inches might be divided into five equal spaces of 9 inches each.
One common source of problem is that the holes are reversed, in a mirror image or right and left hand fashion relative to one another, for each pair of adjacent boards to be butted together, so that different measuring techniques must be used for the separate boards. Another source of problem is that the boards may not be exactly of the same thickness or may be bowed slightly, so that misalignment, particularly at the top surface, can develop.